I Dare by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee Read Free Book Online Page B

regain—that is . . . "

    "Not to be tolerated," the large green person said, in a voice that made every dial in the room jiggle and jump.

    Med Tech sig'Zerba jumped, too, and stared up into the huge, luminous eyes. "I . . . I beg your pardon, ah . . . ?"

    "This is Twelfth Shell Fifth Hatched Knife Clan of Middle River's Spring Spawn of Farmer Greentrees of the Spearkmaker's Den: The Edger," said Lord yos'Galan. "He also claims kin-right to your patient. He has heard distressing reports regarding our kinsman's course of treatment, which your latest analysis supports. We had come here because of those reports. There is a . . . Clutch healing . . . that we propose to try."

    "Propose—" Per Vel sig'Zerba took a hard breath, and retained his hold on calmness. "Lord—Sirs. The condition of your kinsman is precarious. This is not the time to 'try' alternate healings, but to allow the known method to stay its course. The time for alternative healings is when we have brought the patient safely out of his crisis and back into daily life. Then, after study and analysis, a regimen of rehabilitation and additional measures will no doubt be prescribed. Now, however, we must bow to proven methods, for the best eventual health of your kin."

    "With all respect to yourself and your craft," Edger said, while the instruments jittered in their places, "the method now employed dangerously leaches my brother's strength." The big head turned. "Open your eyes, Shan yos'Galan, and look at our brother. Does he seem to you to be mending as he should?"

    Shan frowned and widened his perceptions, ignoring the orange and yellow flutterings of alarm that were beginning to infuse the med tech's pattern, and waited for the familiar and well-loved pattern of his brother to appear.

    Moments passed. The med tech's alarm showed more orange, less yellow, and a spike or two of red.

    Shan opened his shields wider still, caught a glimmer of Edger's seductive intricacy, but yet nothing remotely resembling Val Con's precise complexity or—

    "Sir—" Med Tech sig'Zerba began and Shan held up a hand, hurling aside his shields entirely, desperate now to find his brother, his outer eyes on the readouts fixed into the roof of the sarcophagus, which told of him being alive . . .

    Suddenly, he had it—a hint; nothing more than a faint touch of acerbic sweetness, as familiar to him as his brother's face. Sternly keeping himself to a Healer's discipline, he followed the hint, slowly, and with an eye to peril.

    And found Val Con at last: diminished, lackluster and fragmented, surrounded by a sticky gray quag. Distantly, and engrayed, like a dirty rainbow, he could see the bridge that linked Val Con's soul to Miri's.

    "No!"

    "Sir! I really must insist that you both leave. Now. You are doing your kinsman no service by becoming overwrought on—"

    "Stop." Shan opened his outer eyes and fixed them, with difficulty, on the med tech's face.

    "What have you done to my brother—cerebral function has stabilized, you said. How was it found to be unstable?"

    The tech blinked. "Why, there were—surges. One might almost say power surges. Also overactivity; extreme excitability, in what should have been an at-rest state. These anomalies led the seniors to suspect damage—not unexpectable, in light of other traumas. Steps were taken to normalize brain activity, and those efforts have been successful. We need no longer fear debilitating seizures or fatal lapses of attention."

    "You . . . " Shan took a breath, for once at a loss for words.

    "What distresses you, Shan yos'Galan? Does our brother not thrive beneath the known method of healing?"

    "They have—In their care to normalize they have weakened the link between our brother and his lifemate—the same link which allowed him to survive his injuries until the field 'doc received him. They have—he is fragmented, without form . . . " He looked at the tech.

    "I myself told the seniors